Some weeks had passed.
Jack Sainsbury had not reappeared at Bow Street, the authorities having
decided, so serious was the charge and so important the evidence, that
the trial should take place by court-martial and _in camera_.
Therefore the prisoner spent day after day in his narrow cell at Brixton
Prison, full of fierce, angry resentment at the false charge made
against him, and full of anxiety as to how Elise was bearing up beneath
the tragic blow which had fallen upon them both.
He saw no one save Charles Pelham, his counsel, who now and then visited
him. But even his adviser was entirely in the dark as to the exact
evidence against his client. In the meantime the truth was that the
Intelligence Department at Whitehall had sent an agent over to Holland
to inquire into the _bona fides_ of the Insurance Company whose offices
were supposed to be in the Kalverstraat, in Amsterdam, and had
discovered that though the "office" was run by highly respectable
persons, the latter were undoubtedly Germans who had come to Holland
just before the war. Every inquiry made by the Department revealed
further proof of the accused's guilt. Indeed, the astute Colonel who
was the titular head of the Department had had Mr Charlesworth up at
the War Office and thanked him personally for exposing what he had
declared to be "a most serious case of espionage."
Truly the fetters were gradually being forged upon the innocent young
fellow languishing within Brixton Prison.
In complete ignorance of either the exact charge, or the identity of
those who made it, Jack lived on day by day, full of the gravest
apprehensions. The whole affair seemed to be one great, hideous
nightmare. What would old Dan Shearman, never very well disposed
towards him, think of him now? He recollected that strange anonymous
letter which Elise had received. Who could possibly have sent it? A
friend, without a doubt. Yet who was that secret friend? When would
his identity be revealed?
He wondered if the person who had written that warning to his
well-beloved would, when he knew of his arrest, come forward and expose
the dastardly plot against him? Would he rescue him, now that he was in
deadly peril?
With chagrin, too, he remembered how he had treated Elise's fears with
such silly unconcern. He had never dreamed of the real gravity of the
situation until he found himself in the hands of the police, with that
scandalous and disgraceful charge hanging over his head. The whole
thing was so amazing, and so utterly bewildering, that at times he felt,
as he paced that narrow, dispiriting cell, that he must go mad.
The days dragged on, each longer than its predecessor. Once his sister
was allowed to see him. But he was anxious and eager to face his
judges, to hear what false evidence the prosecution had to offer, and to
refute the foul lies that had evidently been uttered against him. The
authorities, however, seemed in no hurry to act, and it almost seemed
as though they had forgotten all about him.
One day he received a letter--the one welcome gleam of hope--a letter
from Elise, who told him to bear up, to take courage, and to look
forward to an early freedom.
"You surely know, Jack," she wrote, "that I do not believe you to be a
spy. Surely I know how strenuously you have worked in order to ferret
out and expose the horde of spies surrounding us, and how you constantly
helped poor Dr Jerrold."
Those words of hers cheered him, yet he deeply regretted that she should
have referred to the dead man's name. The prison authorities had read
that letter, and mention of Jerrold would, in the circumstances,
probably be registered as a point against him.
The weeks thus lengthened, until the middle of February.
On the night of the 21st of that month--the night on which the Admiralty
issued its notification that a British fleet of battleships and battle
cruisers, accompanied by flotillas, and aided by a strong French
squadron, the whole under the command of Vice-Admiral Carden, had begun
the attack on the forts of the Dardanelles--Charles Trustram dined early
with Lewin Rodwell at the Ritz.
Rodwell was due to speak at a big recruiting meeting down at Poplar, and
after their meal the pair drove in his car eastwards to the meeting,
where he was received with the wildest enthusiasm.
A well-known retired Admiral was in the chair--a man whose name was as a
household word, and whose reputation was that of one who always hit
straight from the shoulder with the courage of his own convictions. The
hall was crowded. The speech by the chairman was a magnificent one,
well calculated to stir the blood of any Briton of military age to
avenge Germany's piracy "blockade." He spoke of the low cunning of the
"scrap-of-paper incident," of the introduction of the red phosphorus
poison-shells a month before, and the terrible barbarities committed in
Belgium. That East-End audience were held spellbound by the fine
patriotic speech of the grey-haired Admiral, who had spent his whole
life at sea ever since he had left the _Britannia_ as a midshipman.
Trustram, seated near the front, saw Lewin Rodwell rise deliberately
from his chair on the platform, and became electrified by his words--
fiery words which showed how deep was the splendid patriotic spirit
within his heart.
On rising he was met with a veritable thunder of applause from that huge
expectant working-class audience. They knew that Lewin Rodwell, being
in the confidence of the Cabinet, would tell them something real and
conclusive about the secret war-facts which the hundred-and-one
irresponsible censors, in their infinite wisdom, forbade the
long-suffering press to publish. Lewin Rodwell always regaled them with
some tit-bits of "inside information." It had been advertised up and
down the country that he was on golfing terms with the rulers of Great
Britain, and the words of a man possessing such knowledge of
state-secrets were always worth listening to.
Glibly, and with that curious, half-amused expression which always
fascinated an audience, Lewin Rodwell began by jeering at those who
"slacked."
"I ask you--every man of military age present," he cried, thrusting
forth his clenched fist towards his audience--"I ask you all to get, at
any post office, that little pink-covered pamphlet called `The Truth
about German Atrocities.' You can get it for nothing--just for asking
for it. Take it home and read it for yourselves--read how those
devilish hordes of the Kaiser invaded poor little law-abiding Belgium,
and what they did when they got there. Murder, rape, arson and pillage
began from the first moment when the German army crossed the frontier.
Soldiers had their eyes gouged out, men were murdered treacherously and
given poisoned food. Those fiends in grey killed civilians upon a scale
without any parallel in modern warfare between civilised Powers. We
know now that this killing of civilians was deliberately planned by the
higher military authorities in Berlin, and carried out methodically.
They are a nation of murderers and fire-bugs. A calculated policy of
cruelty was displayed that was without parallel in all history. Women
were outraged, murdered and mutilated in unspeakable fashion; poor
little children were murdered, bayoneted or maimed; the aged, crippled
and infirm were treated with a brutality that was appalling; wounded
soldiers and prisoners were tortured and afterwards murdered; innocent
civilians, women and children of tender age, were placed before the
German troops to act as living screens for the inhuman monsters, while
there was looting, burning and destruction of property everywhere.
Read, I say, that official report for yourselves!" he shouted, with
anger burning his eyes, for he was indeed a wonderful actor.
"Read!" he cried again. "Read, all of you, how seven hundred innocent
men, women and children were shot in cold blood in the picturesque
little town of Dinant, on the Meuse; read of the massacres and
mutilations at Louvain, Tamines, Termonde and Malines--and then reflect!
Think what would be the fate of your own women and children should the
German army land upon these shores! The Germans did not hate the
Belgians--they had no reason whatever to do so. But the hatred in
Germany against the British race to-day amounts to a religion, and if
ever the Germans come, depend upon it that the awful massacres in
Belgium will be repeated with tenfold vigour, until the streets of every
English town and village run red with the blood of your dearly-loved
ones. Young men!" he shouted, "I ask you whether you will still stand
by and see these awful outrages done, whether you will be content to
witness the mutilation and murder of those dearest to your hearts, or
whether, before it is too late, you will come forward, now, and at once,
and bear your manly share in the crushing out for ever of this ogre of
barbarism which has arisen as a terrible and imminent menace to Europe,
and to the thousand years of the building up of our civilisation."
In conclusion he made a fervent, stirring appeal to his hearers--an
appeal in which sounded a true ring of heartfelt patriotism, and in
consequence of which many young men came forward and gave in their names
for enlistment.
And Lewin Rodwell laughed within himself.
A dozen men congratulated him upon his splendid speech, and as Charles
Trustram sat by his side, on their drive back to the West End, he could
not refrain from expressing admiration of the speech.
"Ah!" laughed Rodwell. "I merely try to do my little bit when I can.
It is what we should all do in these black days. There is a big section
of the public that doesn't yet realise that we are at war; they must be
taught, and shown what invasion would really mean. The lesson of poor
stricken Belgium cannot be too vividly brought home to such idiots as we
have about us."
As the car dashed past Aldgate, going west, Trustram caught sight of the
contents-bill of a late edition of one of the evening papers. In large
letters was the bold announcement, "Air Raids on Colchester, Braintree
and Coggeshall."
"The Zeppelins have been over again!" he remarked, telling Rodwell what
he had just read.
"When?"
"Last night, I suppose."
"Didn't you know anything of it at the Admiralty?" asked Rodwell.
"I heard nothing before I left this evening," Trustram replied.
The pair smoked together for an hour in Rodwell's room in Bruton Street;
and during that time the conversation turned upon the arrest of Jack
Sainsbury, Trustram expressing surprise that he had not yet been brought
to trial.
"I suppose the case against him is not yet complete," remarked Rodwell,
with a careless air. "A most unfortunate affair," he added. "He was a
clerk in the office of a company in which I have some interest."
"So I hear. But I really can't think it's true that he's been guilty of
espionage," remarked the Admiralty official. "He was a great friend of
Jerrold's, you remember."
"Well, I fear, if the truth were told, there was a charge of a similar
character against Jerrold."
"What!" cried Trustram, starting forward in great surprise. "This is
the first I've heard of it!"
"Of course I can't say quite positively--only that is what's rumoured,"
Rodwell said.
"But what kind of charge was there against Jerrold? I can't credit it.
Why, he did so much to unearth spies, and was of the greatest assistance
to the Intelligence Department. That I happen to know."
"That is, I think, admitted," replied the man who led such a wonderful
life of duplicity. "It seems, however, that information which came into
the hands of the authorities was of such a grave character that a
warrant was issued against him for war-treason, and--"
"A warrant!" cried Trustram. "Surely that's not true!"
"Quite true," was Rodwell's cold reply. "On the evening of his death he
somehow learned the truth, and after you had left him that night he
apparently committed suicide."
Trustram was silent and thoughtful for some time. The story had
astounded him. Yet, now he reflected, he recollected how, on that fatal
night, while they had been dining together, the doctor had spoken rather
gloomily upon the outlook, and had remarked that he believed that all
his patriotic efforts had been misunderstood by the red-taped
officialdom. In face of what his companion had just told him, it was
now revealed that Jerome Jerrold, even while they had been dining
together, had been contemplating putting an end to his life. He
recollected that envelope in his possession, that envelope in which the
man now dead had left something--some mysterious message, which was not
to be read until one year after his death. What could it be? Was it,
after all, a confession that he, the man so long unsuspected, had been
guilty of war-treason!
The doctor's rather strange attitude, and the fierce tirade he had
uttered against the Intelligence Department for their lack of initiative
and their old-fashioned methods, he had, at the time, put down to
irritability consequent upon over-work and the strain of the war, but,
in face of what he had now learnt, he was quite able to understand it.
It was the key to the tragedy. No doubt that letter left for Jack
Sainsbury contained some confession. Curious that suspicion had now
also fallen upon Sainsbury, who had so often assisted him in watching
night-signals over the hills in the southern counties, and in making
inquiries regarding mysterious individuals suspected of espionage.
"Well," he said at last, "you've utterly astounded me. Where did you
hear this rumour?"
"My friend Sir Boyle Huntley is very intimate with a man in the War
Office--in the Intelligence Department in fact--and it came from him.
So I think there's no doubt about it. A great pity, for Dr Jerrold was
a first-class man, and highly respected everywhere."
"Yes. If true, it is most terrible. But so many idle and ill-natured
rumours get afloat nowadays--how, nobody can tell--that one doesn't know
what to believe, if the information does not come from an absolutely
reliable source."
"What I've just told you does come from an absolutely reliable source,"
Rodwell assured him. "And as regards young Sainsbury, letters which he
forgot and left behind him in his desk at the office are clear proof of
his dealings with the enemy. In one was enclosed a ten-pound note sent
as payment for information from somebody in Holland."
"Is that really so? And he forgot it?" asked Trustram.
"Well, I've had the letter and the banknote in my hand. Our
managing-director found the correspondence, and showed it to me before
he handed it over to Scotland Yard."
"Well, I must say that I've never suspected either of them as traitors,"
declared the Admiralty official. "I liked young Sainsbury very much.
He was a smart young fellow, I thought, and I know that Jerrold held him
in very high esteem."
"Ah! my dear Trustram," remarked Rodwell, with a sigh, "nowadays, with
an avalanche of German gold doing its fell work in England, it is, alas!
difficult to trust anybody. And yet it is all the fault of the
Government, who seem afraid to offend Germany by interning our enemies.
If I had my way I'd put the whole lot of them under lock and key,
naturalised and unnaturalised alike. It is in that where the peril
arises, for, in my opinion, the naturalised Germans in high places are
suborning many of our men to become traitors and blackmailing them into
the bargain--alas! that I, an Englishman, should be compelled to express
such an opinion regarding my compatriots. Here you have two cases in
point where apparently honest, well-meaning and patriotic Englishmen are
branded as spies, with evidence--in one case certainly, that of
Sainsbury--sufficient to convict him."
"When will his trial be? Have you heard?"
"No. You will be better able to discover that. It will, of course, be
a secret court-martial."
"In that case we shall never know either the nature of the charge--or of
his defence."
"Exactly," replied Lewin Rodwell, with grim inward satisfaction. "We
shall only know the sentence."
Charles Trustram drew heavily at the fine cigar his host had given him,
and sighed. The terrible charges of treason against his dead friend and
young Sainsbury were indeed astounding. Yet he, as an official, knew
full well that the Director of Intelligence did not take such steps as
had been taken without some very firm and sound basis for prosecution.
The Department generally erred upon the side of leniency, and always
gave the accused the benefit of the doubt. That there was to be a
court-martial was, indeed, a very significant fact.
"I suppose you are sending out troops to the Dardanelles?" remarked
Lewin Rodwell carelessly, after a short silence. "I saw the
announcement in to-day's papers?"
"Yes. It will be a far tougher proposition than we at first believed.
That's the general opinion at the Admiralty. We have three troop-ships
leaving Southampton to-morrow, and four are leaving Plymouth on Friday--
all for Gallipoli."
"Of course they'll have escorts," Rodwell remarked, making a mental note
of that most important information.
"As far as Gibraltar."
"Not farther? Aren't you afraid of German submarines?"
"Not after they have passed the Straits. The drafts we are sending out
this week are the most important we have yet despatched. The American
liners _Ellenborough_ and _Desborough_ are also taking out troops to
Egypt to-morrow."
"From Plymouth, I suppose?"
"Yes. All the drafts for Egypt and Gallipoli are going via Plymouth in
future," was Trustram's innocent reply.
Those few unguarded words might cost the British Empire several thousand
officers and men, yet it seemed as though Trustram never dreamed the
true character of the unscrupulous spy with whom he was seated, or the
fact that the woman Kirby--whom he had never seen--was seated in an
adjoining room, patiently awaiting his departure.
What, indeed, would Charles Trustram have thought had he known the true
import of that vital information which he had imparted to his friend,
under the pledge of confidence. The bombardment of Scarborough,
Hartlepool and Whitby had been directly due to what he had divulged,
though he was in ignorance of the truth. More than once, however, he
had reflected upon it and wondered.
Yet after all he had dismissed such suspicion as utterly absurd. To
suspect Lewin Rodwell of any dealings with the enemy was utterly
ridiculous. No finer nor truer Englishman had ever breathed. The very
thought of such a thing caused him to ridicule himself.
He rose at half-past eleven, and, warmly shaking his friend's hand,
asked:
"Will you dine with me to-morrow at the Club?"